


and it was all yellow

by emeraldcitydowntowngirl



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, M/M, Pre-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy), Sappy, Vandays, so sappy! wow!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-17 09:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldcitydowntowngirl/pseuds/emeraldcitydowntowngirl
Summary: based off this tumblr post:she guessed my favorite color first try... but between me and u…… i didnt even have a favorite color until she yelled out yellow!! she was hella excited n smiling like a little kid. so i told her she was right and i havent seen yellow the same since, its in everything. i could probably live in it now.(OR: Patrick never truly appreciated the color yellow until Pete came along)





	and it was all yellow

**Author's Note:**

> in another world, eccentric!ryan is screaming because i used a coldplay lyric as the title lmao
> 
> ok warning: i SUCK at writing vandays! absolutely 100% suck because i never get the timeline right, and sometimes andy is in the band and sometimes not depending on the year and idk if the ages correlate??? so i just wrote it as andy being in the band, and it's just the 4 of them in the van, and patrick's 18 and we're all gonna have to deal with it because i'm horrible at vandays. but anyways: the story!

Patrick loves touring… but hates vans for a number of reasons. 1) No one wants to shower because it's too much of a hassle, and think that baby wipes can probably get rid of a stench that lasts 5 days. 2) He has to drive a lot of the times and he’s probably the least equipped out of all of them. Well, besides Pete and the weight of that DUI. What an idiot. 3) All he ever eats is peanut butter jelly sandwiches. That’s all his life is. Sandwich after sandwich after bag of Doritos after sandwich. 4) He can never sleep properly without something getting in the way, whether it be a guitar case propped between his legs (“For safe-keeping, you have the sexiest and most durable thighs ever.” “Shut up, Joe.”), a whole stack of comic books falling on his head (“Andy, come on!”), or it be _Pete._ Pete, who is most comparable to a cat because all he does is sprawl himself over everyone and everything. And he sometimes legitimately purrs in his sleep.

“ _Pete_ ,” Patrick sighs exasperatedly against his arm, he's still somewhat asleep, but he can feel a too-hot body on top of his, and he _so_ doesn't need this right now. All he wants to do is _sleep._

“Pete, you fucking asshole, get off of me,” he continues to moan, his eyes still screwed shut as he flings an arm out to hit the 23 year old. It hits Pete in the shoulder, but it only makes Pete cuddle in closer, bury his head in Patrick’s neck, and take a deep breath in through his nose. “Mmm, stop fighting already. I’m _cold_. And you smell good. And you’re hot like a furnace. In both ways.”

Patrick can hear Joe snicker from the front of the van, from where he’s driving. “Dude, don't make it creepy.”

“I’ve already _been_ creeped out,” Patrick replies back, slowly in the way that one speaks when they’ve just been woken up by Pete Wentz lying on their side. He turns to Pete, who still makes no fucking effort to get up, and he says, “You’re lucky I feel bad for eating all of your Doritos. If you get a boner, I’m ending this.”

“Gay above the waist,” Pete sing-songs, and before Patrick can beat him to it, Andy laughs- he's in the seat in front of them. “What a load of bullshit. You put Chris’s balls in your mouth and-” “It was a dare!” “NO ONE DARED YOU TO DO IT. You just said, ‘ _Hey, you guys dare me to_ ’, and we said ‘ _No, Pete, don't’_ , and ‘ _you said-’_ ”

Pete just groans loudly to stop Andy from talking. “ _Okay_. We get it. I’m a little more than gay above the waist.”

Patrick scoffs. Pete’s _way_ more than ‘gay above the waist’, but he's not about to call him out.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Andy remarks, before he puts some headphones on, and says to Pete, his head peeking over the top of the seat, “I’m sleeping, don't bother me because I’m driving next.”

“Nah, I’m on Patrick duty right now. Patrick, roll over a little to the-- _yeah.”_

Patrick rolls his eyes and tucks his head into his arms. “ _Stop_. _Talking_. _Now_.”

To his surprise, Pete goes silent. The arm tossed over Patrick’s side curls in closer, Pete’s chin hooks over Patrick’s shoulder until he can feel the fan of his breath from his nose, and his breathing evens out. And they sleep.

They sleep until 2 hours later, when Patrick wakes up to find Pete writing in his notebook, leaning it against his knee for leverage, and squinting to see underneath the light of street lamps. Joe and Andy have since switched places, Joe’s snore is so unique to him that Patrick can't help but laugh a little as he wipes some drool off his cheek. “Hi,” Patrick says, gently because he doesn't want to startle Pete. He knows that they sorta just slept together only _because_ Pete was being his usual aggressive self, but Patrick’s just… kinda not like that. “What’re you writing?”

Pete turns to him, and shrugs. “Something dumb. Kinda bored, cause you fell asleep again. My source of entertainment, just, _gone.”_

“Oh, right,” he says sarcastically as he pulls his glasses off and rubs the indents from it on his face, “I only exist for your entertainment, I forgot.”

He pauses, and then says, “And hey, you fell asleep too, didn't you?”

The elder nods, shifting his feet so that he can move in closer to Patrick. “Yeah, a little. You’re so cuddly and soft like a teddy bear.”

Patrick means to glare at Pete, and he _does,_ but when Pete gives him a faux glare back, baring his teeth as he mockingly narrows his eyes, he just laughs instead, harder when he notices Pete trying to keep up the expression and it doesn't work.

“And you’re bony like a… skeleton. I don't know,” Patrick says, waving him off, and he moves in a little closer to Pete too, so that they can talk in whispers without waking Joe up.

“Mismatch made in heaven,” Pete rolls his eyes playfully, before he says, softly, “I have a question. It's important.”

“Shoot,” Patrick says, and he doesn't know why his heart suddenly skips a beat (or feels like it anyways), because he thought he was over his dumb crush. But as Pete looks at him through his eyelashes, as his fingers tighten around Patrick’s thighs, a wave of heat comes over him, and he internally curses himself for it. He's already broken rule one, which was don't fall for Pete and Pete’s dumbass antics, he doesn't want to break rule two- kiss Pete because he's too overcome with weird, mixed, you-think-I’m-a-music-genius-and-it-makes-me-kinda-horny, you’re-a-huge-inspiration-to-me, you-being-annoying-kinda-endears-me feelings.

“I don’t know your favorite color,” he says, and Patrick frowns. Oh, _that_ was it?

“I don’t have a favorite color, I like them all,” Patrick admits. And that’s the god honest truth. He doesn’t mind anything, he has mild synesthesia, and different colors remind him of different things, there’s nothing wrong about any color and there’s nothing pulling him towards just _one_. But Pete doesn’t look too happy with that answer- he just narrows his eyes a little and shakes his head. “No. I don’t believe it. You have to have at least one!”

“Okay, you guess,” Patrick insists. “I’ll tell you if it’s right.”

He was going to say no to anything Pete said, just so he could piss Pete off, as some sort of payback. But Pete inhales deeply, keeping his breath in his chest as he grabs at Patrick’s face, and he looks into his eyes like he’s trying to pull the answer from Patrick’s mind. Baby blue eyes widen, and there, he takes Pete in- circles underneath his eyes visible every time they pass a street lamp, the way that his fingers, bony and long, feel against his jaw, and all Patrick has to do is lean in, all he wants to do is that, just to taste him. But he stays still, let’s Pete ‘read his mind’ or whatever he’s doing, and when Pete lets go of his breath, let’s go of his face, Patrick smells mint gum and feels the invisible imprints of his hands on his face.

“ _Yellow,_ ” Pete says, a little loudly, a little enthusiastically, and he laughs as he says it again. “Your favorite color is _yellow_. I can feel it, I know it.”

He smiles at Patrick like he knows he’s 100 percent correct, like he’s going to get a prize in the form of Patrick telling him he’s right, and it might be because he hasn’t seen Pete look so happy in God-knows, or it might be because his heart is sorta swelling with this immense love for the guy in front of him, but Patrick agrees with him.

 _"Yeah_ ,” he breathes out, taking in Pete’s grin, shushing him a moment later when he shouts “Alright! I knew it!” a little too loud, enough for Andy to question what he’s whooping about, and when Pete turns to look at Patrick, his grin still on his place, although it looks a little warmer, a little gentler, Patrick smiles back. “Yeah, my favorite color is yellow.”

* * *

He doesn’t know how, but ever since that night, yellow has become just. _So_ apparent. Everywhere he turns, he feels yellow, sees it, _hears_ it. They pass by farms as they drive to wherever, and they find a sunflower meadow, and Joe stops the van just so he can just look, even though Dirty says it’s ‘super gay’ (Pete shoves at his shoulder, and says, “Shut up”).

Anyone who wears yellow, Patrick notices them the most in the crowds, even in the dark. Andy wears this bright yellow shirt one day, and Patrick surprises himself by telling Andy that he likes that shirt when they stop for gas. Andy just gives him an odd look over the top of his coffee-cup and he says, “Thanks… got it at Target.”

He hears yellow, both in the metaphorical synesthesia way, on the radio kind of way. Every time he says ‘Pete’, he sees a vibrant yellow cloud of smoke poof in and out of view, and sometimes, ‘Yellow Submarine’, or even ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay will come on in the middle of nowhere, and Pete turns up the volume a little, grinning to Patrick as he does it. “Your song,” he says to him, before sings, laughing as he does, _“and it was all yellow,”_ and God, it _is_ all yellow, Patrick can’t get it out of his fucking head.

He can’t get it out of his head, but he’s growing so fond of it that he’s starting not to care.

* * *

“ _Hi_ ,” a girl, who’s wearing a tee-shirt that says **‘I LOVE PETE WENTZ!!!!!!!!!!!!’** in huge letters, says, as she beams at Pete through her braces. “I love you so much!”

“Yeah,” Pete says, marveling at the girl’s shirt a little, taking everything in with wide, curious eyes. “I could. Um. Tell. I love you too!”

They’re hanging out after a show- Chris and Joe are smoking and everyone is sort of lounging around, sitting and eating and drinking and socializing, and doing what they always do after a show, minus the fact that a fan had found them. Patrick never knew they were popular enough for younger fans to seek them out, to make ‘I love you Pete’ shirts, but he watches this interaction from the ground, in amusement.

“I… I was reading your Livejournal,” the fan says, and her hands have been behind her back the entire time, but when she brings her hands forth, a bouquet of yellow flowers comes with it. Joe and Andy have to turn away and they laugh silently, wiping their eyes, because this is just _too_ good, “and you said that you loved yellow flowers, and I… um… here. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Pete says, easily this time, already like he’s getting the hang of it, as he takes the flowers from her hands when she offers them to him. Unexpectedly to Patrick, Pete reaches in for a hug, one that the fan reciprocates excitedly, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso, as he laughs.

“This is awesome!” he gushes, as he pulls away from their hug, “Wow, thanks so much. I do really love yellow flowers. They remind me of someone special to me, but now I think you have a spot in my heart,” he says to her like it’s a secret, grinning as he does. He probably doesn’t know how intently Patrick’s listening, but he _heard_ it, and wave of jealousy overcomes him.

She laughs nervously, _giddily_ , and she says quickly, “I love you, Pete!” before she looks behind his back, and waves to Patrick, who’s still watching from the ground, but now, with more intent. Yellow flowers remind him of someone special? _Special_? The color _yellow_? “I love you too, Patrick, but… Wow, I love you Pete!”

“I love you too!” Pete says again, before he plucks out one of the flowers, and hands it to her, and adds, “Here, you should keep this one, that way we’ll be connected, even after you leave.”

“Okay,” she blurts out, and she practically shakes with excitement, which makes Pete laugh a little again, even more when her mom comes to drag her away. “Bye, Pete! I love you! I love you!” she yells as her mother ushers her away, and Pete waves to her.

“That was _sweet_ ,” Joe manages to get through his cackling laughter, he's being sarcastic, but Pete just rolls his eyes instead of doing what he usually does, which is go along with it. “It was _nice_ , you’re just jealous no one’s giving you flowers, dickhead.”

Joe flips him off, which means that Pete was correct. Satisfied with the reaction he got from Joe, he smiles smugly to himself as he sits back down next to Patrick, flowers in hand. “That was oddly endearing. I feel like I need to call my mom and tell her about it.”

“Yeah…” Patrick trails off, his mind miles and miles away. Was Pete just totally bullshitting, or is there _really_ someone ‘special’ that yellow flowers remind him of. Or did he just imagine that whole part on account of how _lonely_ he is.

“These smell amazing, wow,” Pete says next to him, and when Patrick turns to look at him, Pete all but shoves the flowers in Patrick’s face. “Smell ‘em! Do you think she sprayed perfume on them?”

“Ugh! I don't fucking know, get this out of my fucking face,” Patrick hisses, pushing the flowers out of his face, as a sudden jolt of anger in the form of fire crackles in his veins. From what… he's not sure. Definitely not from Pete shoving the flowers in his face, Pete’s done worse, but… from the girl giving him flowers, from the fact that he doesn't know who the yellow flowers remind Pete of, the fact that Pete even got flowers, everything is just starting to piss him the hell off.

“Sheesh, okay,” he pouts, pulling them away from Patrick, just to bring them back to his nose. “What, are you jealous too? It’s ‘kay, Trickster. Someday, someone’s gonna buy out a whole fuckin’ nursery for you, that’s how famous we’re gonna get. And, and, you don’t even _need_ any fangirls, I’m your biggest fan, they’ll _never_ rival me.”

“It’s not about that, I don’t care about- about fuckin’ flowers, it’s nothing. Just forget it,” he huffs, as he crosses his arms. He knows he’s being unnecessarily mean, but he doesn’t care- all he wants to do is sleep this off. Because he doesn’t want to assume that special someone is him, because he’s not special, he’s just himself, he’s just Patrick, he know he’s not worthy of all of Pete Wentz’s fuckin’ glory. At least, not until:

“Fine, whatever… but here, keep one, since it’s ‘not about the flowers’. They kinda remind me of you anyways,” Pete sighs, pulling another one of the flowers out of the bouquet, tossing it in Patrick’s direction before he walks over to where Chris and Joe are.

Patrick holds it in his hand like he’s been given the greatest gift in the world. They remind Pete of _him_.

* * *

“Dude, Kiwi birds are aweeeeeeeeeeeesome!” Joe exclaims loudly, shouting over a couple of seats to Andy, who’s driving. “Fuck your ducks! Fuck the duck! _Fuck_ the _duck_!”

“Yeah, your favorite bird is the _duck_?” Pete laughs, and Andy shouts out his defense before Pete can make fun of him further, “You guys wanna make fun of ducks, but they’re aggressive, I’ll adopt one and get it to bite your dick off.”

“For people who claim that they’re straight, you guys talk about dicks a lot,” Patrick says, looking up from playing on his Game Boy. “Like _a lot_.”

“I never claimed to be straight,” Pete begins to say, before Joe interrupts him and says, “yeah, he just claimed to be gay above the waist. Like _that’s_ an actual thing.”

“It’s an actual thing,” Patrick corrects him, and Pete looks a little thankful, at least until Patrick turns to him and says, “it’s just not a thing that _you_ are.”

And then Pete just scowls. “Shut up. I like pussy.”

“ _‘I like pussy’_ , the man says! The man _also_ sucked Gabe Saporta of Midtown’s dick!” Joe says, before he starts literally howling with laughter. Patrick just rolls his eyes, officially over it now. “Oh my God, get off his ass, Joe. Pete’s struggling with his sexuality, let’s just let him struggle in peace. If he’s bisexual, he’s bisexual, if he’s gay, he’s gay.”

“If he’s straight, he’s straight?” Pete asks, sounding a little hopeless, and Patrick just quirks an eyebrow. “Right…”

“Sometimes I wish I were gay. Like, I wish I were constantly around chicks the way that you’re constantly around dudes, Ricky,” Joe sighs sadly, before Patrick shakes his head. “Yeah, but it’s not like I like any of you…”

Er… yeah, sure.

“And besides, no one in the scene is gay, Well, besides stage-gay, which totally doesn’t count. And… well, besides Gabe Saporta of Midtown.”

“He’s gay above the waist too,” Pete’s quick to say, but then he immediately regrets it, because Joe begins again, peeking over the seat with a shit-eating grin. “Oh, Gabe Saporta of Midtown is gay above the waist like you? The same Gabe Saporta of Midtown who’s _dick_ you _sucked_?! Dude! You’re not helping your case!”

“ _My favorite bird,_ ” Patrick begins to say, loudly, so that he can just end this fucking conversation already, he likes taking the piss out of Pete, but he likes to do it by himself, and he knows that Pete hates when people gang up on him. “My favorite bird is the canary. Because it’s cute and it makes a nice sound, and it reminds me of the Canary Islands.”

“Wait, your favorite bird is the canary?” Pete asks, looking a little shocked. Patrick just gives him an odd look. “Yeah… what, what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing… it’s just cool, like, your favorite color is the same color of the canary. Dude, yellow follows you everywhere.”

Oh. _Shit_.

Patrick didn’t even notice. But they are, canaries _are_.

They move past it after that, Patrick half listening as he plays Pokémon, and the rest of the day passes as it normally does- they stop at their destination eventually, play a show that leaves them sweaty and gross, go out to a McDonalds and eat dinner, and they come back to the van, to drive to the next stop on the tour, following Chris, who’s in the other car.

The canary only comes up again when Patrick wakes up 10 minutes before it’s his turn to drive, and he finds Pete drooling all over his notebook, fast asleep. His legs are tangled in Patrick’s, they’ve been sleeping on the same seat since forever, this isn’t strange, but Patrick’s never actually seen Pete sleep so peacefully before- usually he tosses and turns, and generally looks like he’s at war with himself, but he’s totally knocked out.

Patrick reaches for his glasses, before he leans over to pull the notebook from under Pete’s head. And Patrick goes through Pete's journal all of the time, Pete trusts him with it, and Patrick writes a lot of the music when Pete’s not there anyways, going through his stuff is something he’s used to, so he quickly glances at the words scribbled on the most recent page. He, however, doesn’t prepare for:

 _you are a_ _canary_ _, i’m a coal mine_

 _You are a canary_ , Patrick repeats in his head, as his face twists with confusion. He knows where Pete’s coming from, that the canary was used to detect poisonous gas in coal mines, he knows that Pete’s being his usual self, comparing himself to danger, he knows, he fucking _knows_ , he’s the canary, who else would be the canary, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why Pete would write that, why he would write that he poses danger, that if the canary gets inside him, knows who he is, will wilt away and die, and if he’s the canary, then he doesn’t know what it means for them, for whatever Pete wants them to be.

He doesn’t bring it up the next day, and when Pete hands him his notebook to leaf through, the page is ripped out, but there’s something in his eyes, like he _knows_ that Patrick knows, that he knows that the notebook didn’t find its way in his bookbag on its own. Either way- it doesn’t get mentioned again.

* * *

“Shit,” Patrick mutters under his breath, as he squints his eyes. “ _Shit_.”

He’s driving this time around, and he’s got the sun in his eyes, full-fuckin’-blast, and he knows that he’s gonna get a killer headache if he doesn’t find a pair of sunglasses. And if he gets a killer headache, performing will be hell.

“Joe?” he calls out, because he remembers seeing Joe hanging out at the venue the other night wearing sunglasses inside, and maybe he has them on him, but he only gets a _‘mrph’_ in response, a sound that’s definitely from Pete.

“Listen,” he says, loud enough for Pete to hear, “I need a pair of sunglasses, I’m gonna fuckin’ die if I don’t get one.”

He’s totally over exaggerating, but it sucks to drive with the sun in your eyes- especially when there’s no mirror shield, because the van is old as shit. Thankfully, a couple of seconds later, after he almost crashes on account of Pete climbing into the passenger seat, knocking Patrick’s head to the side and blocking his view in the process, a pair of sunglasses get pressed into his free hand. “Courtesy of Hey Chris, ‘cause that’s who I stole them from.”

He doesn’t even look at them until they’re in front of his face, these ugly ass bulky yellow frames, but the fact that they’re _yellow_ surprises Patrick more than anything. “Yellow?” he asks, almost under his breath, and Pete nods. “Yup. See, I’m such a good bandmate, not only did I get you some sunglasses, but they’re in your _favorite color._ ”

Patrick just rolls his eyes playfully, trying to not completely freak out, because they’re yellow, and everything is yellow, and yellow fuckin’ haunts him, his stupid undying love for Pete _haunts him_. But he can’t see anything, so he doesn’t have much of a choice- he puts the sunglasses over his regular glasses, and he sighs in relief when everything becomes dark enough so that he can actually see where he’s going, and he doesn’t have to worry about going into the wrong lane, and, like, driving in the wrong direction.

“I need a picture of this,” Pete laughs, “oh my God, you look like an idiot. My little blind idiot”

“You _suck_ at compliments,” Patrick scoffs, and Pete laughs harder. “No, fuck this, I’m getting my camera, I _need_ a picture.”

It takes a moment or two, Pete’s rummaging through all of the garbage that has begun to pile up, but Pete returns, climbing back into the seat, disposable camera in hand. “Alright… keep your eyes on the road, I know it’s hard because I’m just soooooo sexy, but-”

“God, shut the hell _up_ ,” “Perfect. Yes, you look so pissed off, it perfectly counters how lame your glasses, emphasis on the _‘s’_ , look.”

Pete takes his picture, of Patrick glaring forward at the road, and he throws the camera behind his back without a care of wherever it falls. Judging from the noise that comes after, it was probably thrown on top of Andy. “Dude, lighten up. You look cute, I promise. You make all of the boys… er… cum.”

“I make all the boys _cum_?” Patrick asks, amused, and Pete nods, seriously. “Oh, totally. You’re so hot.”

“Ugh, enough,” Patrick says, and _God_ , he hopes Pete can’t see the fucking blush on his face. Pete calling him hot… it’s almost like Pete’s never looked at another guy before, because, according to himself, there’s no way that Pete could find him hot. Just… no way. He’s all baby-faced and covered in fading acne scars, and Pete’s all _Pete_. “Can we, um… what’s in the CD holder, the satellite here sucks.”

Luckily for the both of them, Pete doesn’t have to venture back into the van- the CD case is near to Pete’s feet, so he just leans down, and flips through the CDs in the book with a frown, one that only deepens the further he gets through the book. “Uh… crap? I think Joe made a whole bunch of playlists and burned them instead of packing actual stuff. Everything is in his handwriting, like, on the discs.”

Patrick inhales sharply through his nose. Of course Joe wouldn’t pack actual stuff, because why would he do that, why would he bring stuff everyone would like? “How bad _is_ it?”

“Pretty bad,” Pete grimaces, the disbelief apparent in his voice. “Okay, I found a British Indie one, I think that’s our best bet. That, or 13 hours of Morrissey, or a love playlist he made for Marie. Loooooser.”

“Wouldn’t Morrissey and British Indie be the same thing?” Patrick asks, mostly to himself, and Pete shrugs. “It’s _Joe_ we’re talking about, he probably put him on everything, I’m pretty sure he has a Smiths shrine in his room.”

They laugh at the expense of Joe- poor Joe.

Pete puts the CD in, and they hold their breath, waiting for the damage- but, the CD starts with “Sleazy Bed Track” by the Bluetones, so they glance at each other, pleasantly surprised.

“I love this song,” they say, practically at the same time, and Pete gasps, and says quickly, like he’s trying to test out if they can read minds, “I’m a great singer and Pete is always right.”

It doesn’t work, clearly, and Patrick just shakes his head with faux disappointment as he turns the volume up. “Oh man, we’re not spiritually and mentally connected? Crazy!”

He expects Pete to retaliate, but he doesn’t- he just sways his head to the guitar, and when the vocals kick in, he starts singing along. And Pete’s voice leaves much to be desired, but Patrick smiles when he hears it- _“I know it’s getting late, but if you’d like to talk a little more…”_

 _“Well, that’s alright with me…”_ Patrick sings back to him, taking his eyes off the road a little more often than he should- but traffic’s holding up, and nothing is really happening- so it’s just the two of them, jamming out in their seats, bumping to the guitars and the drums. _“I’m feeling kinda tired…. But it ain’t exactly beating down my door… now just why could this be?_ ”

They sing a little louder this time, their eyes locked on each other, Patrick staring straight into pools of caramel brown, and Pete at the yellow sunglasses over the prescription pair, _“And I know I shouldn’t stay, but you’ve been acting strange the past few days… And this has made me think… Your pills have cost too much… And you can’t feel them working anymore…. So pour them down the sink, yeah!”_

Pete grins at Patrick as they sing even _louder_ , their bodies moving to rhythm of the bass, the bass that’s shaking this poor, poor van to the core, totally jamming out as they scream-sing, _“And listen to meeeeeeeee! ALL YOU’VE GOT TO DO IS BABY KICK OFF YOUR SHOES AND LAY DOWN! CLIMB UP HERE AND LET’S FORGET ABOUT SLEEP, AND LAY DOWN!”_

They’re interrupted abruptly by the sound of a car horn blaring at them, and the noise is loud enough for Patrick to jump, and quickly turn back to the road- where traffic has already begun to move. Pete’s shrieking with laughter as Patrick speeds up to catch up, and he has to hold his stomach because of how much it hurts from the laughing when Joe wakes up and yells, “OH _SHIT_ , WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

After that, after they finally get Joe to calm down, they continue to sing along with the CD… just… with a little more focus on Patrick’s part, and a little less participation on Pete’s, and more on Joe’s. Pete doesn’t sing in front of people that aren’t Patrick as much anymore, which makes Patrick feel something fuzzy in the pit of his stomach. That moment that they shared, right before that asshole honked at them… god, that’s all Patrick ever wants. _That_ , that’s the fuckin’ dream. Just letting loose and singing together to good music.

“Oh man, this is awesome! I love this CD!” Joe exclaims, looking between Pete and Patrick. But, upon seeing Patrick’s sunglasses, he does a double take. “Oh wow, _fashionable_. That’s a good look on ya, Ricky.”

“Shut up,” Patrick jibes, and he throws an elbow out, so that it hits Joe in the stomach. It lands- Joe _oofs_. “Maybe I like them, asshole.”

And Joe’s about to punch Patrick back, but the opening notes to ‘Who Are You’ by the Who comes on over the speakers, and all 3 of them holler _loudly_ at the sound of it, literally nothing in the world could hype them up more than that song, and them screaming _“I WOKE UP IN A SOHO DOORWAY, A POLICEMAN KNEW MY NAME”_ was loud enough to _finally_ wake Andy up from his slumber.

* * *

“Are you _sure_ he doesn’t need stitches?” Pete asks, peering down at Patrick with the most concerned expression Patrick’s probably ever seen on his face. Patrick’s seen Pete at happy, at sad, at angry ( _God_ , he’s seen Pete at angry), and at every other emotion ever, but he’s never seen Pete look so scared and so worried before- and tour injuries happen to them _often_. He's suffered through many Wentz anxiety attacks, where all Pete _does_ is worry. But he's never seen him like this.

“We should get him to the emergency room, I can’t- I’m not fuckin’ joking right now, it’s still bleeding, look at it.”

Patrick doesn’t really remember it happening- he recalls singing “Dead on Arrival”, and he can recount Pete screaming and jumping around on stage, and he remembers a flash of red as Pete’s bass hit him in the face, but besides that… he just remembers suddenly coming to his senses in front of the van, sitting on the ground, with Pete kneeling next to him, one hand cradling his face, and the other pressing a rag against the bridge of his nose, and everyone else watching with wary eyes.

“ _Pete_ ,” he says, his voice is a little nasally because he was hit in the nose, “I’m fine, I’m fine. We don’t have the time to-“

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Pete says, and he’s talking to the crowd of people behind him, Joe, Andy, Chris, Dirty, Kate, a couple of others, but he’s staring at Patrick with wide eyes. “You guys go then. I’ll take the van, Patrick and I will stay back.”

His forehead is throbbing harder than ever, he can smell the thick scent of blood, can see redness on Pete’s wrist and hands and on the rag that Pete’s been pressing to the cut, and he _still_ feels like arguing with Pete. “No! I’m- I’ll _be_ fine, I’ll just apply pressure, we’ll put a Band Aid on it, it’s fine, we’re not missing a show.”

“You never freak out like this when you throw your bass into me,” Joe says, conversationally, just to lighten the mood a little, because it’s so tense, but Pete almost growls at him when he whips around to glare at him. “You’re not _Patrick_.”

“Wow, if Chris cared about me half as much as you care about Rick, he’d be the best boyfriend ever,” Kate laughs, and oh God, Patrick wishes Kate never said that, because now he’s hyperaware of the way that Pete looks at him, the steady hand on his jaw, the way that Pete kept apologizing over and over and over and _over_ again, as if Patrick didn’t hear him the first time. He closes his eyes for a second, trying to mull everything over in his head, but Pete gently pushes at Patrick’s face to get him to open his eyes. “Don’t do that, I don’t want you falling asleep.”

“If I’m not falling asleep, we’re not going to the emergency room,” Patrick says, and he tries to sound stern, like he really means it, but he knows his eyes are probably glassy, he knows that he probably looks like an idiot, leaning into Pete’s touch as he bleeds all over himself, but he won’t let Pete call all of the shots. Even if he’s still injured. “I don’t care about performing tomorrow without any sleep, but I refuse to fucking sit in an emergency for 6 hours. Okay? I’m fine. My nose doesn't... _feel_ broken, I don't think.”

“You guys heard him,” Chris says, trying to move this along a little, because Pete doesn’t look like he’s going to be getting up anytime soon, he’s just sitting there, his hands on Patrick’s face, staring into his eyes like he’s afraid he’s going to lose him. And Patrick’s staring right back. Chris taps his foot against the pavement, and sighs, “someone get the man a Band-Aid.”

They all look between each other, giving each other the same look- _who the fuck carries Band-Aids with them?_

Thankfully, Andy says, “Oh, wait, give me a second,”, before he climbs into the van, and reappears a couple of seconds later. “Drumming blisters,” he says to them as he opens it up, and pulls out a few. “How big is the cut again?” he asks.

Pete pulls the cloth off Patrick’s face again, and thankfully, thankfully for everyone because Patrick knows if it were still bleeding, Pete would take him to the E.R whether he liked it or not, and thankfully because Patrick doesn’t need a bleeding face, it stops bleeding, enough for Pete to assess the damage. His breath hitches a little, and he’s about to bring his free hand up just to feel it, feel the damage he’s done, but Kate yells, “Don’t do that, you _fucking_ _idiot,_ what if you fuck it up further?! Let me look at it.”

She shoves Pete out of the way, and she grabs Patrick’s face too, moving his head from one side to the other, before she says, “Andy, give me one of the medium sized ones. Pete's bass got him right on the bridge of his nose but- Patrick, you can breathe fine, right?"

He nods.

"And look, guys, it looks normal, and he's not bleeding anymore. If it were broken, I'm sure it would be way worse, I guess Patrick just got lucky. Do you have any of those alcohol wipes? It still looks a little gross.”

“Oh, thanks,” Patrick says sarcastically, and Kate grins at him. “I keep it real.”

Pete just frowns with frustration as he watches this interaction. “I could have come to that conclusion too.”

“Damn, _shut up Pete_ ,” Chris groans, “your boyfriend is gonna come out of this alive.”

Patrick’s eyes widen, and he’s quick to disagree, before Pete thinks he’s off having gay fantasies about him.

“Pete’s not my boyfriend!” he squeaks, and Kate laughs when she rips a packet of wipes with her teeth. “I’m so into this, if you guys ever fuck, can I watch?”

“You’re messed up, weren’t you into Pete putting Chris’s-“ Joe tries to say, before Pete quickly interrupts him by saying, “It was a dare! I didn’t want a mouth full of ball, but I was-”

Patrick quickly decides he’s done with this conversation, even though Kate, Dirty, Joe, and Andy are gasping with laughter so loud that Pete can’t even finish his sentence.

“Pete, no one dared you! No one is judging you, it’s so _hot_!”, she says, and as she presses the wipe to Patrick’s nose, and as Patrick feels probably the worst pain he’s felt in his life, he just howls in pain to get them to shut up.

It works- everyone keeps quiet as Patrick gasps at how much it stings, and he almost curses Pete out right then and there, but he doesn’t, he can see it written on Pete’s face how bad he feels about it. So instead, he just tries to not cry as Kate opens another package to clean up some spots she missed- he's sure his whole face is covered in blood, and she's doing him a favor as she continually disinfects his face, but  _still_.

“You’re a sadist,” Patrick cries when she goes over the cut again, and she laughs. "If only you knew what Chris and I get up to."

“Let’s just put on the Band-Aid on him and go, _please_ ,” Chris offers, crossing his hands over his chest, and Kate nods as she unwraps the bandage. “Yeah, we’ll talk about it later. What color do you want, Patrick?”

“Yellow,” Pete and Patrick say at the same time. Pete cracks his first smile since the incident when Patrick grins at him. “Maybe we are connected after all…” Patrick says to him, despite the fact that all of those other people are standing around them, and suddenly, Kate looks between the two of them, like she’s truly putting two and two together, that maybe all of the jokes about them liking each other and being in ‘looooooove’ weren’t too far off after all.

She presses the yellow bandage over the bridge of Patrick's nose, and she turns her head to press a kiss over it. “So it won’t hurt anymore,” she explains, and she lovingly pats his face, before she gets back up on her feet, and stuffs the Band-Aid wrapper in Dirty’s hands. “Here, you take this,” she says to him, and he rolls his eyes as he says back, "you suck."

As the rest of the group bicker back and forth outside, Pete helps Patrick back into the van, helps him change out of his bloody tee-shirt into a soft smelling new one, and he hands Patrick another pillow to brace back on, once he has started to settle in. “Here. I know I didn't hit you in the head, but you fell hard afterwards, and- just don't fall asleep on me, alright? Maybe we can throw something together, I was writing earlier.”

“I feel like I’m gonna die,” Patrick says, and he brings his hands up to his face and groans into them. “I can’t focus right now, is your MP3 charged? We can just listen to something.”

Pete hums, turning to the back of the van to find his backpack, and he hands it to Patrick gently, so gently, like he’s afraid he’s going to break him again. “You listen. I’ll write, or-“

Patrick just hands him an earbud, and gives him a _look_. Pete takes it, and doesn’t argue.

The hours pass so seamlessly that Patrick's genuinely shocked when, 4 hours later, Pete's MP3 player dies. He always drifts off to different places when he listens to music, but judging from the way at Pete looks at him when Patrick turns to him, like he's just committed the worst sin, Patrick knows that he's been mulling over the cut the entire time. That's in Pete's nature- worry. But he's never seen it so upfront before, so directed at _him_. 

He opens his mouth to comment on how fast the time flew, but Pete beats him to it when he blurts out, "I think you should punch me in the face. So that we're even. Or something. I feel so fucking bad, you have no idea."

“I have a slight idea,” Patrick says jokingly, but Pete’s not smiling.

“Stop, don’t do this,” Patrick pleads softly, “don’t feel bad, I know you didn’t mean to do it, it doesn’t even- I mean, the pain could be worse, alright? I need my Pete back, I need you to make fun of me for fainting and being a pussy.”

Patrick really hopes it’s his injury that’s making him see tears in Pete’s eyes.

“No,” Pete whispers, as he pulls Patrick close. “I can’t.”

Patrick wraps his arms around Pete’s torso, he doesn’t care anymore, he’ll blame this on being sick if the guys bring it up, and he rests his head against Pete’s shoulder when he says back, gently, “If I let you feel bad tonight, can you promise me you won’t feel bad in the morning?”

Pete’s hands fall to his side, and Patrick has to bite his tongue to prevent him from sighing in content. “This sounds like dirty talk,” he murmurs into Patrick’s hair- Patrick takes this as a yes.

“You wish,” Patrick replies back, and he laughs a little. “You really wish.”

They spend the rest of the night talking with Andy, who’s been driving, and in the morning, when they stop for gas and for coffees, Pete changes Patrick’s bandage. They sit in front of the station, and after Pete applies the new, yellow Band-Aid over the cut, he murmurs “And this is so it doesn't hurt anymore,” and he presses a gentle kiss to it.

* * *

By the time Kate pulls Patrick to the side as they load up the vans, his cut has, for the most part, healed. It still hurts like a bitch to wear his glasses, but it’s either that or be blind, and Patrick would rather the former. The gash, if anything, looks a little badass. Like he got into a fight or something.

Anyways- Kate’s wearing the most ridiculous outfit Patrick’s ever seen. A _yellow_ mini dress over a pair of  jeans and a bright pink zip-up hoodie is bad enough on it’s own, but her horribly highlighted hair added to the mix puts a horrible taste in Patrick’s mouth . And he opens his mouth to say something about it, about to ask if she’s looking for some fashion advice, that he’s not that kind of gay friend but he can give her some advice, but she blurts out, as soon as they’re out of earshot, “So, when were you gonna tell me you _liked_ Pete? I thought we were friends, Ricky.”

As she says this, she drags Patrick down to sit on the sidewalk above the pavement- he goes easily, mostly because his mind has suddenly turned to jelly, and he can’t think to fight her off and tell her that she’s just fantasizing about something that will never happen. _She noticed,_ he thinks, when she crosses her arms at him, _how could I have made it so fucking obvious._

“How did you, how- _no_ , I don’t- uh. Like Pete. I mean, I like him! As a person. Strictly. Where did you even-”

She stops him before this gets too pathetic. It was quickly getting there. “Oh, Patrick. Honey. This is adorable.”

Puppies are adorable. This? Is not adorable.

“I’m serious,” he says, and he really tries not to sound like a whiny kid, but he’s close to begging at this point. “Where the hell did you come up with that? It’s not true, I don’t. Like... _like_ him.”

“It’s true, you don’t have to lie,” she says, smiling at him like she knows everything, and she rests a hand on her shoulder. That little touch, it annoys him. He doesn’t want Kate’s sympathy, and he doesn’t want Kate to talk to him about his stupid crush because he’s trying to pretend like it doesn’t exist, and he doesn’t-- this is the worst. This is definitely the worst. He just lets his head fall into his hands, and he closes his eyes.

“Patrick,” she laughs softly, “it’s okay, it’s just so funny. No, it’s fucking _adorable_ , I feel like we’re in middle school again. All we have to do is write on a piece of paper, ‘do you like me’ with the little check-boxes for yes and no.”  

“Kate,” he begs, _begs_ , into his hands, he can’t even bring himself to look at her,  “don’t tell anyone, okay? Not even Chris, _especially_ not Dirty, just- it’s so pathetic, I’m trying to work through it, it’s-”

“Why?!” she shrieks, and Patrick flinches at the sound of it. “No, don’t! Pete likes you too! I have an intuition, I know these things! Patrick, look at me.”

He looks at her miserably, his hands still resting on his knees, palms up, like he’s calling to the heavens to help him, to take pity on him. “ _What_ , what do you want?”

“You’re blind, Stumph. If you don’t think Pete is totally in love with you, you are _so_ wrong. Remember that night that Pete busted your face?”

He nods slowly, like he's agreeing, before he shakes his head. “But that’s different. He fucking threw his bass in my face, of course he was gonna- I mean, you know how Pete is.”

She shakes her head too. “Pete’s overprotective, I know that, but he’s- he’s different with you. He’s _softer_ when he's around you, Patrick, it’s so _romaaaaaaantic_. I was watching you guys from the window-”

He winces. “ _That’s_ not creepy.”

She ignores him, and continues, “and God, Ricky, when he kissed the bandage after he put it on you?! Patrick, come on, don’t be an idiot. Pete would never do that for anyone else, you can’t deny that. He freaks when everyone gets hurt, but he would never kiss their _bandages_ , Patrick, he likes you!”

He’s quiet. He takes a deep breath in, he brings his hands back to his face, pulls his glasses off, and he rubs at his eyes. Is there truth to what she’s saying? Maybe. He can’t say he hasn’t thought it either, but Pete’s a touchy person, he has so much love for everyone, he just doesn’t know if it’s more than that. “Pete and I are different,” he mumbles, “but it’s not romantic. We- we’re just _like_ that. That’s our friendship.”

“Do you want me to list it off for you, how I know he likes you too?” she asks, and Patrick nods. He wants to hear what she has to say… even though he knows he’s going to find a way to contradict it.

“You guys sleep together in the van,” she begins to list off, counting on her fingers as she continues to speak, “he kisses your neck on stage. He’ll ask you what you want from stores, and he won’t even ask me, the only girl with you guys. He hasn’t been sleeping with anyone else, and that’s a fact, because he doesn’t talk to girls after shows. And he hasn't even come to Chris and I yet for a threesome, and we’ve been on tour for _a month._ He wants to cuddle with you instead of have sex with us? _That’s_ dedication right there.”

Patrick doesn’t need to hear about Pete sleeping with her and Chris, so he sends her an exasperated glance.

She rubs his shoulder and coos an apology. “Oh, shit, sorry. He’s a good lay, that’s why you should let me watch when it happens. Or… maybe I could join-” “No, Kate, _God_!” “Sorry! I had to ask…”

Kate shows him the 4 fingers she’s been holding up. “There are 4 valid reasons. And I’m the most outsider person in the world. There’s… there’s lots of stuff, okay, I’m a little high right now, but Patrick, God, don’t put yourself down like that. Pete’s fuckin’ _gay_. And you’re fuckin’ gay, and it’s gay, and it’s beautiful, and you guys are-- you don’t even get it, Patrick, I just want to-”

She reaches over and shakes his shoulders as she shouts, “LOOK AT WHAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU!”

“Hey!” Pete shouts, tearing the both of them out of their little world- Kate and Patrick glance over at Pete with wide eyes, a little afraid that he’s overheard them. But, he has an easy smile on his face as he yells, cupping his hands around his mouth so that they hear him, “Keep your hands off my lead singer, bitch! You break him, I break you!”

When Patrick looks back at Kate, she’s holding a palm up. “And that’s 5.”

* * *

“Do de duck, rubber duck, duck, rubber duck, rubber duck, duck!” Dirty shouts at Patrick, as he throws yet _another_ rubber duck at Patrick. “You ever watch Sesame Street?”

The rubber ducks have a backstory- Patrick’s just too busy fuming to think about it.

“Have I ever watched Sesame- dude, get the fuck out of my way,” Patrick shoves Dirty away as he throws the rubber duck that was thrown at him in a garbage bag. “I hope you paid a shitton for those rubber ducks.”

“40 bucks, 20 of which I stole from Pete,” Dirty laughs. “You knew it was coming, Pete’s prank on me didn’t go unnoticed. And besides, it made the show so much better, man, you’re just a spoil sport. All we needed was a bubble bath, get you all wet? The chicks would be-”

He doesn’t hear the rest of what Dirty has to say, because he walks the fuck out and heads in the direction of the vans.

“I will personally murder Dirty myself. No, I’m killing _you_ first, and then Dirty,” is what Patrick greets Pete with, when he climbs into the van. Pete just pouts at him, and squeaks a rubber duck at him. 

Andy and Joe aren’t there- it’s just the two of them.

“You didn’t even help to clean, you fucking asshole. Don’t squeak the rubber duck at-”

He squeaks the rubber duck at Patrick again, and he yells out when Patrick lounges at him, pinning him down against the seats as he bites at his shoulder so that he can rip the duck out of his hands.

“Wait, don’t toss it! I need it, we’ll look back at this and laugh! Hey, Tricky-bear, remember when Dirty pranked us and threw a hundred rubber ducks at us while we were on stage? Oh, man, memories!”

“Not a very great one,” Patrick hisses at him, although he _does_ hand the rubber duck back to Pete. This is an easy feat, because he’s still straddling him. He doesn’t count it as straddling, but it’s definitely straddling. “If you even think about it, I’m going to shove this up your ass.”

Pete grins up at him. “ _Hot_. But fine, I won’t. I feel bad for making you clean up, just-”

Patrick supplies this one for him sarcastically- “Not enough to actually help me. Got it.”

“Well… yeah. Oops? We all know I’m an asshole,” Pete says, waving him off, and he slides down the seat a little more to get more comfortable. And Patrick’s still pissed at Pete, but now it finally registers to him where he is. How Pete’s crotch is right underneath him, how Pete’s looking at him. It makes his face burn. But he doesn’t move.

He thinks about how easy it would be to kiss him. To lean down, let Pete’s hands roam his sides. It makes the pit of his stomach churn with such want that he can feel himself start to get hard.

“Are you okay?” Pete asks, his voice so low that Patrick throws his head back, forces himself to breathe a little. He feels Pete underneath him too, and a hand comes up to rest against his thigh, and when they lock eyes, there’s this moment where they’re just waiting for the other to make the first move. They breathe together, stare at each other with wide eyes. Pete’s hard. Patrick’s definitely hard. And when Pete reaches to cup Patrick’s jaw, as Patrick leans down, the door to the van swings open.

“Hey, what-” Joe begins to say, before he takes in the scene in front of him- which is Pete and Patrick scrambling away from each other. Patrick falls into the space between the seats, and Pete throws his hands up as he yells, “Joe, get the hell out!”

Joe doesn’t have to be told twice- he closes the van doors, and he screams out, to (probably) the rest of their friends _“They’re doing it!”_

Patrick reaches for the handle to open the door, and he falls out of the van as he tries to grab Joe by the shirt- they both come tumbling to the gravel, and when Patrick looks up at the entire crew, he squeaks out, “ _No_! No, we weren’t!”

Pete peeks his head out of the van, to save Patrick from this mess. He kinda sucks at lying. “We weren’t. If we were doing it, we would have locked the doors.”

“Yeah, we’re not stupid,” Patrick says, and Kate crosses her arms, smirking at him because she sees right through this, “we would have locked the doors. If we were doing it. Which we weren’t.”

Pete and Patrick look between each other, and a silent _‘why didn’t we lock the doors’_ is shared. Joe just moans underneath Patrick’s weight, and he says miserably, “Please get off of me now. This hurts.”

They don’t sleep next to each other that night- Patrick drives. And the next morning, they pretend like it didn’t happen. And Patrick hated Dirty for those fucking yellow rubber ducks, but now, he _really_ hates him.

* * *

“Wait, you _named_ it?” Patrick asks, raising his eyebrows as they continue to walk through the suburban neighborhood of Wilmette. They’re nearing the end of their tour- only 3 more shows, so there's starting to settle back home, back into their apartment, even though everyone will hang around in the vans parked in Pete’s childhood driveway. Kate, Dirty, and Pete's mom make the best dish Patrick’s ever had in his life probably, and now the two of them are walking to the park. The two of them meaning Patrick and Pete. Because who else.

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Pete says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Martin the Duck. After you, cause y’know. How could I _not_ think about you when I think about that duck? I’m keeping that little guy forever, I told you that it would make for a good memory.”

Patrick rolls his eyes- they won’t directly talk about the fact that they almost made out, but Pete can joke about it being a memorable night because of him. If Pete didn’t make it a habit of making out with his friends, Patrick would be a little hurt. But Pete does, and it doesn’t matter, so Patrick just shrugs as they continue to walk.

“Shut up. I’m still so pissed about that.” “You’ll get over it.” “Yeah, probably.”

The walk to the park is one Patrick knows well- he’s just used to following that route in the dark. No one is out during the night besides the stoners, which is always prime time for the two of  them to hang out by swing sets and kick rocks and talk about leaving their town. Something that’s coming closer to reality with every passing second. That thought would scare Patrick a little if he weren’t so thankful. They’re finally getting big, big enough to be played on the local radio stations, big enough for people across the country to know them, even if it’s little pockets of people.

“Hey, is that a lemonade stand?” Pete asks, nudging Patrick in the side a little, to get his attention. Patrick follows his gaze, and he nods. “Yeah. You got money?”

“Do I have _money_? Patrick. We’re _rockstars_. Let’s go.”

They cross the block, Pete’s hand fitting into his own, and he practically drags Patrick to the stand, where a couple of kids who don’t look a day older than 10 are working. The lemonade looks a little like piss, and the ice has melted, and the cups look like they have dropped into mud, but they walked over, and the kids look ecstatic to have a customer, and so-

“Hi… can I please get two lemonades?” Pete asks one of the kids, flashing the kid’s mother a smile. Patrick would roll his eyes if he weren’t concerned about seeming rude- Pete’s such a whore, for lack of a better term. But he’s mostly pissed because Pete won’t give him the same treatment, not because he really thinks Pete would make a move on the kid’s mother right in front of them.

One of the kids pours out enough lemonade to fill two cups, and the other holds out a hand. “10 bucks please.”

Pete pauses, looking between the two kids with a shocked expression.

“10 bucks?” he asks, his voice on the side of hysteria. Patrick glances up at the sign, and, yeah, no, that didn’t say .5 dollars, that said _5 dollars._ In retrospect, they shouldn’t have assumed it would have costed a nickel… but that lemonade is so not worth 5 bucks. Pete looks at Patrick desperately, and Patrick almost laughs in his face, almost asks, ‘What about that rockstar money?’, but he just sighs as he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and hands a crisp 10 dollar bill to the kid. “Thanks.”

Pete’s still frozen with shock, so it’s Patrick who grabs their cups of lemonade, and leads Pete back onto the main road. “I can’t believe we were ripped off like that,” he laughs once they’re far enough from the stand. He takes a sip of the lemonade, and he winces. “Too sour. And it looks like they added food coloring, it looks like-”

Pete says this with him. “Piss!”

And then Pete continues- “And not, like, the good kind.”

Patrick closes his eyes and tries to will the image of Pete drinking his own piss out of his head. _This_ is who he has chosen to like. Pete laughs next to him like he knows exactly what he’s thinking.

“That’s why I hate kids,” Pete says, shaking his head, a moment later, signaling the end of the piss conversation Patrick refused to be part of, “they ripped us off so bad. Who sells lemonade for 5 bucks a cup!? That’s 10 bucks we could have spent on… like, weed. We could have spent that on _weed_.”

“I wouldn’t smoke it and it was my money, technically. So no, we couldn’t have spent it on weed…” he trails off, and Pete knocks their shoulders together. “Loser.”

Pete grabs Patrick’s lemonade out of his hands, and he tosses the drink to the plants before he throws the empty cups in a nearby garbage can. “We could have spent that on chips. Make a stop at that supermarket you used to work at.”

And before Patrick can stop him, because he knows it’s coming, Pete sings, _“Simply having a wonderful Christmastime!”_

“Happy Xmas (War Is Over) is the superior Christmas song,” Patrick says, shaking his head, “I love Paul but that song is just the fucking _worst_. You try working with that song playing on repeat.”

“Nah, man, those _synths_. Perfect. You don’t know what you’re missing,” Pete laughs, and he knocks their shoulders together once more. “But whatever. I’m just trying to argue with you so that we can almost make-out again.”

Patrick almost gives himself whip-lash, with how fast he turns to look at Pete. Pete just shrugs. “What? You think I forgot?”

“No,” Patrick answers, and he sputters as he tries to say, “I just- you just- it was in the moment, it didn’t- I don’t like you, I don’t- I mean. I mean? We didn’t. We wouldn’t have done it.”

“We wouldn’t?” Pete asks, and he tries to sound innocent, but he forgets that Patrick knows him too well for that bullshit. “We were both hard.”

Patrick would pinch the bridge of his nose if he weren’t worrying about the gash opening again. So he grabs Pete’s hand, and makes him stop walking. “Look at me,” he says, and Pete does. “What the hell do you want me to say right now? That, yeah, we would have done it?”

“I’m teasing you, Patrick,” Pete breathes, “say whatever you want.”

“ _Get fucked_ is what I’m saying to you,” Patrick says, with his jaw set. “Don’t tease me.”

He doesn’t necessarily like how aggressive this is becoming, but the last thing he needs is Pete thinking that he’s in love with him, if Pete doesn’t like him back. Patrick doesn’t fuck with that, doesn’t like the idea of Pete knowing, if Pete’s just gonna fucking reject him. He’d rather suffer on his own, he doesn’t want Pete’s sympathy, doesn’t want ‘I like you but-’, doesn’t want any of that.

“But if I’m not teasing you, then what’s the point?” Pete says jokingly, treading lightly, and he wraps an arm around Patrick’s shoulder when Patrick glares back at him. “Come on,” Pete urges, “let’s just walk to the park, forget I even brought it up. Where was I again? Oh yeah.... _Simply having a wonderful Christmas time…”_

The taste of yellow lemonade is stuck in his mouth, sour and uninviting.

* * *

Of course Patrick is stuck with the job of cleaning out the van- it doesn’t make sense for Patrick to _not_ have that job. Andy’s back in Milwaukee, and Joe and Pete are working shifts at the supermarket (Patrick hopes that they play ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ just so that they would get a taste of their own medicine, always making fun of Patrick for hating that song, but… he also realizes that they’re in August, and the likeness is close to none). And they told him to clean, because they just didn’t wanna do it.

So, that’s what he’s doing, his headphones in, connected to Pete’s shitty MP3 player (“Yellow Ledbetter” by Pearl Jam- yes, he realizes the irony), as he throws garbage into trash bags. He gags as he picks up crumpled up tissues, because _that’s_ not sketchy, and he sets all of the discarded clothing into a separate pile to wash at the laundromat down the street. He wipes down the windows with some cleaning product, and by the time an hour’s passed, the van is in the same condition it was in when they rented it: clean enough.

Among some of the things that Patrick found while he was cleaning, besides pages of lyrics that Pete ripped up, ones that Patrick stuffs into his pockets so he can try to piece them together when they’re alone, was Martin the Duck. And Patrick knows that it’s Martin the Duck, because Pete scribbled ‘Martin’ on the bottom of it. But that’s not the part that has his heart beating like crazy- it’s the little heart Pete drew underneath the name.

He blinks at it for a second, as the world around him begins to feel like it’s slowing down. Suddenly, Pete’s music in his ears sounds like mush, like he’s underwater, and the only thing he can focus on is the heart. He’s been so blind to everything Pete’s been doing, everything Kate told him was stuff he had brushed off, but the heart… all of the signs suddenly click. Every kiss he’s ever given Patrick, every moment his hand fell onto his thigh, all of the cryptic lyrics about canaries, the longing looks across the stage. It feels like he’s been jamming the wrong keys in the hole the entire time, and he’s finally gotten the right one.

It feels a little dramatic, driving all the way to Kate’s, but he doesn’t know who else to go to. He parks haphazardly on the road, definitely blocking someone’s driveway, and he all but knocks her front door down with how hard he’s knocking on it.

Kate appears, with half of her hair straightened, and she looks at him with annoyance as she crosses her arms. “ _What_?! I know you miss me, but-”

She looks down at Patrick’s hands, and he gulps as he shows her the yellow rubber duck with the heart underneath it.  “Um. I think Pete might like me?”

She sucks in a breath through her teeth, and she uncrosses her arms. “Ugh. Fine. We’re talking about this upstairs, but you have to help me straighten my hair.”

Patrick’s decided that he's not so mad at Dirty about the rubber ducks anymore.

* * *

It’s the first day of September, and it’s Joe’s 18th birthday, so everyone’s sitting in the Trohman’s backyard, eating s’mores as birthday cake. The air is so warm, so smokey, since they’re sitting around a fire, and it is here that Patrick feels so at home. Pete’s arm around his shoulder, Joe’s little brother annoying the shit out of them, Bacon the dog going batshit crazy because no one will give him any chocolate… it reminds Patrick of band practice when Fall Out Boy was nothing but an idea, something to do after school.

And now, he’s given up college for it. He should have started classes last week, but he hasn’t and- he’s so _happy_. Even if his parents aren’t, even though everyone seems to be skeptical despite knowing the fact that they had a successful tour, that people showed up and didn’t boo them every night.

 _We did it,_ he thinks, looking at his friends. Pete’s weight on his back is grounding, keeps him from totally spacing out, but he feels like he’s in a crazy other dimension that he has no part of being in. The universe where they’re making it. Where performing has become a reality. Not something he only dreamt of doing.

“You good, Trick?” Pete asks, nudging at his shoulder a little, and Patrick blinks back from daydreaming to find Pete staring at him. The rest of the group, the tour friends plus Marie and Joe’s brother, they’re not paying them attention, so Patrick doesn’t feel so bad when he says, “Can you come with me?”

He’s not sure if it’s seeing Joe and Marie and Chris and Kate being lovey around the fire, or if it’s the fact that all of his feelings come out night, or even if it’s because he’s feeling so much love for Pete, for the band, for everything that Pete’s given him, but he’s suddenly never felt so ready to just come out and tell Pete the truth. With everything that he’s assessed, sat and fucking analyzed with Kate… he’s feeling more confident than he would with anyone else. It feels like being on drugs, the effect that good company and memories has on Patrick, but when he looks at Pete, all he can think about was that moment in the van, he remembers the kiss on the bandage and the yellow flowers, and he’s so close to just jumping him and kissing him right there.

Pete follows Patrick the couple of steps it takes to get to the back porch- Patrick doesn’t care if they’re close enough for everyone to see, he just wants them to be out of earshot. “Okay, I have something to say to you…” he says, as he sits on one of the steps, and motions for Pete to sit too.

Pete does. Pete’s also looking at Patrick with a concerned expression on his face, one that increases when Patrick takes Pete’s hands in his.

“Uh… alright… you're kinda scaring me here,” Pete laughs, so nervously that Patrick has to roll his eyes. “I’m not quitting the band. I’ll never quit the band, you need to stop worrying about that.”

“That’s like telling me not to… worry. You know worrying is literally ingrained in my DNA,” Pete says miserably. “Just- what did you need to tell me?”

It’s now or never. And the moment has already lost its momentum. Nevertheless: “I… sorta love you?”

Pete raises his eyebrows as he scoffs jokingly. “Only ‘sorta’? Ricks, I’m kind of offended, I thought I meant more to you.”

Frustration blinds him, clouds his judgment. Patrick throws his hands up as he cries, “No, you idiot, not like that! I’m- I’m _in love_ with you!”

And then it gets silent. Pete’s eyes widen. His hands in Patrick’s, they slacken, and he looks at Patrick with such hopelessness that Patrick’s stomach drops. The fireflies around them, emitting yellow light… they almost mock Patrick. Tease him with flashes of yellow that will never stay.

“You can’t be… _in love_ with me,” Pete says to him, laughing sadly like the idea itself is so out of this world, like it could never happen. “It’s just- like, you know when you spend a lot of time with-”

“Are you letting me down,” Patrick asks, “because if you’re letting me down, just- it’s fine. It’s… _fine,_  it’s more than fine.”

He brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, because he’s going to start on himself, start the self-hatred and the constant badgering of questions, like, _‘how could you have seen this working out’_ and _‘should I kill Kate or should I kill myself_ ’, but Pete grabs at his hand before he can do that, and he says, “No, don’t do that, you’re gonna upset the cut.”

 _LET ME_ , Patrick wants to shriek at him, _JUST LET ME,_ and his shoulders become tense when Pete touches him. But the look in Pete’s eyes, Patrick knows these well, isn’t pitying, like when Pete tells Patrick he hates one of his ideas for a song. This one, this one is longing. He knows this because it’s all Kate tells him to look for.  _Just look at what’s in front of you,_ she would say, _just look._

“If I kiss you,” Patrick says, so soft that he’s not even sure that Pete can hear him over the music, over the crackle of the fire, over the sound of the cicadas. “If I kiss you, will you kiss me back?”

He doesn’t get an answer back- Pete just leans in, and Patrick meets him in the middle.

Their kiss is… messy. Patrick immediately licks into his mouth, so desperate, so desperate to taste him, to feel him, and his hands go everywhere, one second his hands are cupping Pete’s jaw, bringing him impossibly closer, they breathe together when they have to pull away, and the other, his fingers are curling in the material of Pete’s shirt as he moans into his mouth, giving him everything, letting his body do the work because his mind and everything in it has turned to mush.

Either way, it’s _good._  Pete’s as desperate as he is, their teeth clash when Pete dips back in for another one, and they only stop what’s quickly becoming a make-out session because- “Oh my _God_ , guys, _look_!”

They’re slower to come apart than the time in the van- mostly because they don’t have anything to hide. Patrick turns to look at the crowd of people looking at them with wide, shocked eyes, and he laughs as he wipes his mouth on his arm. “Nothing to see here,” he says, shaking his head, still with that grin on his face, “just- go back to whatever you guys were doing.”

“Dude, you and Pete were having _sex_ on my _porch_! My eyes!” Joe pretends to gouge his eyes out, but Kate just shoves at his shoulders. “It’s hot, Joe, shut up. Let them enjoy their moment.”

She winks at Patrick, and Patrick just laughs back- he’s so fucking giddy with happiness, when not even moments ago, he felt the worst dread in his life. When he turns back to Pete, Pete’s looking at Patrick the way he always does, like Patrick’s a star, like he’s the moon in the sky, but now, Patrick finally registers the love in it.

“Since when?” Pete asks softly, a nice and welcoming polar opposite from their kiss, even though Patrick... Patrick definitely wants _that_ again. “When did- I’ve loved you since forever. I loved you before we even met, I knew from the second I saw you, I- I just didn’t want you to feel the same, you know the way I am. Like that day, with the lemonade, I was- I mean, you know the way I am.”

Patrick knows the way Pete is very well. “I know,” Patrick whispers, bringing Pete’s face closer, so that he can kiss him again, just because he _can_ ,  “I know, and I still fucking love you. Ever since… ever since you said my favorite color was yellow. I see it everywhere now. I love you.”

And as Pete says “I love you” back, Patrick catches the yellow light from a firefly nearby. Maybe Patrick’s been reading them wrong, reading them the way that he had been reading Pete- maybe he just wasn’t looking at what was in front of him the entire time. They weren’t flashing their yellow light at him to mock him, to dangle that possibility of Pete loving him back in his face before fading back to black. They surround the two of them, and their yellow light, like Pete’s love, like Patrick’s love, comes in pulses, like a heartbeat. They were showing him that it was love.

**Author's Note:**

> no i didnt make the peterick kiss happen on joe's birthday because it's also my birthday and i like having the knowledge that in this universe they got together on my birthday uhhhh what :/ who would do that! 
> 
> anyways i hope u guys liked that!!! it ended up being wayyyy longer than i wanted it to be and im sure that the timeline and the fact that i am so bad at vandays might have annoyed some of you guys but i feel like the readers who read my writing on the reg are kinda just used to my style which is "idk what im doing but here it is i've never heard of research before". nevertheless, lemme know if you guys liked it! or if you think i should dedicate 2 seconds to looking up things... i almost wrote that andy was from michigan RIP :/
> 
> my tumblr: travtrick :} (in case u wanna follow me and idk. see my posts about how much i love hayley williams. oh, and the occasional EAPotato update. still working on chapter 2 LMAOOOOO. this fic might take a while)


End file.
